NEW YORK, NY March 26, 2003 — Chancellor Joel Klein is expected to announce next week whether he'll allow any more city schools to get an exemption from the new curriculum, which goes into effect this fall. The Chancellor initially exempted roughly 200 successful schools from the new math and literacy requirements. But he's now considering others that have applied for waivers. WNYC's Beth Fertig visited one East Village School that's hoping to make the cut.

TEACHER: One, two, three, go. KIDS: 1-2-3...

Students at the Children's Workshop School on East 12th Street use all types of activities to learn about the world around them. These third and fourth graders are jumping up and down to measure their pulse.

TEACHER: Can somebody raise their hand and tell us how many times their heart beat after hopping in 30 seconds? Josephine? KID: 79-90

Teacher Miriam Sisherman says her students will get a lot of use out of this one little exercise.

SISHERMAN: This is a science class but there's a math component to it also because we time the kids pulses for 30 seconds and then they're going to be asked to figure out how many times their heart would have beat in a whole minute, so they have to do that math. There's also - today we're doing it also as a reading comprehension lesson. They're reading 2 paragraphs about their heart and blood and answering questions about that.

Using themes like biology to also teach math and reading is an integral part of the curriculum at the Children's Workshop School. It's a philosophy called progressive education and Children's Workshop is part of a network of similar public schools on the Lower East Side. But the school's director, Maria Velez-Clarke, doubts these programs could continue if her school adopts the Chancellor's new curriculum. That's why she's applied for a waiver.

CLARKE: Teachers wouldn't have the autonomy that they have now to design curriculum.

Some schools have applied for waivers because they object to the Chancellor's choice of math and reading programs. But Clarke worries the new curriculum would prevent her school from weaving these basics throughout the school day. The unified curriculum would set aside 90 minute blocks of reading each day, extra time for phonics and an hour of math.

CLARKE: If it is very, very prescribed and we have to follow you know a chapter and a page and a unit for the whole class, what do we do about that child who doesn't get it? Do we leave that child behind and move on? With the way you know we work, we really work with children on a very individualized basis.

At a recent City Council hearing, Chancellor Joel Klein said he doesn't want teachers to lose their individual approach and creativity.

KLEIN: This is not cook book teaching. The core of what we're doing is working with a rich curriculum and professional development, and frankly too much of what's going on in the United States today is trying to create teacher proof curriculas.

However, Klein says a unified curriculum can help get teachers and principals on track, and create a consistent program for students who transfer in and out of different schools.

More than half of all city students are not performing at grade level. Test scores at the Children's Workshop School aren't much better. Clarke says that's partly because the school has just about 250 students - meaning tests at each grade level are based on a very small sample. Classes are also extremely diverse - with new immigrants, low income and middle class students. Many parents acknowledge there's room to improve. But they also want this 10 year old school to stick with its program. Judy Garnar Wortzel recently surveyed her fellow parents.

WORTZEL: We found that parents were happy with the way that things were working at this school. That they were confident in the teachers, confident with the style. And the other thing we found out is that the tests were not important to them as their measurement.

In addition to tests, the school relies heavily on teacher evaluations based on portfolios of every student's work. And parents see evidence that even children at risk are turning the corner. Virginia Pizarro says her six year old granddaughter no longer has trouble at school.

PIZARRO: Because she didn't use to pay attention and now she's learning to pay attention more.

Regardless of whether Children's Workshop keeps its curriculum, parents know their school will eventually have to rely more heavily on tests. The federal No Child Left Behind Act requires all schools to meet annual performance targets. But parents say the school has a better shot of meeting those targets with its current program. They've already sent letters and documents to the Chancellor and last week, Klein made a surprise visit to the school. For WNYC I'm Beth Fertig.